There was a hand on his shoulder, and Alriyn stopped. Novan. With the energy around him, the historian made for an imposing presence in the darkness, one he didn't necessarily have in the light.
“Wait here,” Novan whispered.
In the darkness, there was an ominous tone to his words. Was there a reason that Novan wanted him to wait rather than following them? Was there something more taking place here than what he knew?
There had to be. The simple fact that he was here, that he was in the tunnels beneath the mahne chamber, was enough for him to know there was more taking place than he had ever imagined.
Alriyn waited, feeling unsettled. Before today, such a sensation would have been unexpected, the kind of thing he would've chided himself for even feeling. After facing the Eldest, after experiencing an attack such as he had, at the hands of the Magi turning to the Deshmahne and away from the gods, seemed unimaginable previously. But here he was, dealing with that reality.
Novan returned, and Alriyn felt him as pressure upon his manehlin, that strange aura that surrounded him that he had seen since… since Alriyn had forced his mind open.
“Come on.”
Alriyn followed the sense he detected of Novan. As he did, he became aware of Endric's energy as well.
“Where are we going? I thought the plan was for us to circle back around, reach the Deshmahne.”
“We will, but first, we need to do something here,” Endric said.
As he said it, Novan tapped his staff, much like he had before, and again, patterns appeared along it, glowing a bright white.
Alriyn found it odd that teralin would glow so brightly and so cleanly like that. Usually, teralin was a hot metal, one that, if anything, glowed more of an orange, but whatever Novan was doing, whatever power he was pushing through the staff, had changed that for him.
With a light now glowing, Alriyn could see the inside of the tunnel. They were in a wide cavern, one with a ceiling that stretched twice or more higher than he was tall. Walls were far away from him, room for a hundred or more people to fit comfortably. They were carved smoothly, reminding him of the way the palace had been formed, seamlessly as if carved from the mountain itself.
Veins of black ran through the walls, twisting like streams, coming together in thicker patterns that became almost swirls of color, before thinning once more.
Stranger still for Alriyn was the fact that along with the veins of teralin, there was what appeared to be swirls of energy, much like the manehlin that he saw surrounding himself, Novan, and even Endric.
“Why here?” he asked.
Novan turned, his hand gripping his staff and a ferocious intensity on his face. Alriyn almost took a step back, wanting to get away from the immensity of the historian's gaze.
“This place once housed artifacts your Founders believed owned by the gods. That is what the Deshmahne think to acquire. That cannot happen.”
“You said that it once housed them. Where did they go?”
A hint of a smile played across Novan's face. “Where, indeed? There was a great Mage who saw fit to close these mines, a man who understood risks that your people took by possessing them. He monitored these tunnels for safety. When the mines were lost, he closed them, to prevent the same potential danger that had been here before.”
“Tresten?”
Endric’s gaze scanned the cavern. The look on his face made it clear that he had been here before. There was a pained expression, one that Alriyn knew had a story to it. He was curious about that story, and about the source of the pain.
What would Endric have seen here, in this empty chamber where there was nothing other than the veins of teralin in the walls? What would the general have seen here?
The answer came to Alriyn. He felt foolish for not having seen it before. “You were part of that attack, weren't you?
Endric nodded as he started toward a row of bins, searching in each one as he made his way around the cavern. At each, he paused, peering into it, before looking up. With each, a growing concern became clear on his face.
What had been here? Nothing now—that much Alriyn could tell even without searching the bins the way Endric did. The Council had only known the mines were closed for the safety of the city, and that once they had proven that teralin was no longer—or had never been—required to reach the gods, there was no real need for it to be mined here. Why mine the ore when it didn't help them access the gods? Why leave the mines open when doing so only placed them in danger? And so the Denraen, with the assistance of Tresten, had closed the mines.
“Is that why you brought me here?” Alriyn asked. “Was there something here you wanted me to see?”
“This place once housed many items of power,” Endric said returning to them. “Most were moved. A few had remained.”
“You said most. What happened to the rest?” Alriyn asked.
Novan scanned the room, the intensity of his eyes shifting, becoming more a look of concern. Novan had always been confident, bordering on cocky. For him to have concern, Alriyn worried what was missing from here.
“Empty? Completely?” Novan asked.
Endric only nodded. “I was warned but didn’t have time to investigate. They got here before us.”
He and Novan shared a look. This time, Alriyn was certain it was concern on their faces.
“What is it? What has you worried?” Alriyn asked.
Novan swallowed. He tapped his staff, and the light glowing along its surface began to fade. “It means… It means that we might already be too late.”
“For the city?” Alriyn asked.
Novan turned to them. “This is about more than the city. This has always been about more than the city. There is a reason the Deshmahne wanted to reach your home. The same reason Vasha has always been so well protected.”
“More than the mahne?”
“I think that is part of the appeal, but yes, this is about more than the mahne,” Novan said. He shifted his gaze to Endric. “I thought we would have more time.”
“I thought she would have more time,” Endric said.
“Who?” When they didn’t answer, Alriyn turned to Novan. “The goddess? Is that who you mean?”
Rather than answering, Novan tapped his staff once more, and the light flickered out.
Alriyn shivered as it did.
Endric led them through the now closed teralin tunnels. Other than the chamber they had found empty, with veins of teralin that ran through the walls, the mines looked much as Alriyn would've imagined. The walls had the rough markings of picks and hammers, and they had to weave around the occasional piles of rock where the ceiling of the cavern had collapsed.
Alriyn did not allow himself to think about what that meant, and whether they had to worry about the collapse of the mines around them. He tried not to think about the fact that the Deshmahne possessed power, and that they had ways of manipulating energy that resembled what the Magi possessed.
It would be a simple matter for Alriyn to collapse the cavern, drawing on the manehlin to weaken the stone. If the Deshmahne attempted something similar, he didn't think any Mage would be strong enough to withstand that.
He followed the faint glowing along Novan’s staff, the occasional tap ringing through the tunnels. It provided a little light, not quite as much as it had at first, especially not as much as it had in the chamber where they had stopped, but enough where Alriyn didn't have to rely solely on the sense of the energy surrounding them. Magi eyesight might be good, but it was not so good that he could see in total darkness.
They spoke little as they made their way through the tunnel. Alriyn had a growing sense of dread about the extent of the Deshmahne influence in the city. He had thought the greatest betrayal had been the Eldest converting to the Deshmahne, but it seemed he had underestimated the danger of the Deshmahne. Endric and Novan worried about something more than simply the Magi converting.
When they stopped at a branch point in the tunnels, Alriyn forced
Novan to face him. “What is it that you're not telling me? What is it you fear that you won't share with me?”
Novan glanced to Endric, and the general nodded. Why would Novan need Endric's permission to share?
“This is not the best time for this conversation,” Novan started.
“When would be a better time?” Alriyn asked. “The city has been infiltrated by the Deshmahne. The Eldest, the Mage who leads the Council of Elders, has been converted to the Deshmahne. And the very peace that we have been tasked by the gods with maintaining has begun to falter.” Alriyn shifted his gaze from Novan to Endric. “Tell me, when would be the right time to ask these questions?”
Endric's attention drifted up the length of the tunnel. He tipped his head as if listening, and as he did, Alriyn noted energy swirling away from him.
Why was it that he should detect energy like this?
He had always been able to see the manehlin; that was their gift from the gods. What he saw now was something different. It was a kind of energy that he could actually see the other man using. That bothered him, not the least because he didn't know that Endric had any ability to use power like this.
Endric turned back to him. “A secret has been kept from the Magi, Second Eldest. It’s one that has been kept because doing so allowed you to hold onto beliefs that were necessary. Only a few living know the truth.”
Alriyn glanced from Novan to Endric. “I assume the two of you know the truth?”
It was Endric who nodded. “The two of us. A few others. We make up something called the Conclave.”
“The Conclave?”
Novan chuckled. “I'll admit that it is no less pretentious than calling yourselves the Council of Elders.”
“The Conclave has long been tasked with maintaining an equilibrium, a sort of balance in the world,” Endric said.
“Who tasked the Conclave with this?” Alriyn asked.
“The beings you know as the gods,” Novan answered.
“That I know as the gods?” Alriyn asked.
“The gods are real, Second Eldest.”
Alriyn felt a grin creeping across his face. “I don't think you'll hear any Mage questioning whether the gods are real.”
“Perhaps not objecting,” Novan started, “but their understanding is misguided.”
Endric was still shaking his head. “Careful, historian. Don't let your previous bias color what you share.”
Novan shot Endric a hard look. It was one filled with the same intensity that Alriyn was accustomed to seeing from the historian.
“And don't let your proximity to the Magi over the years cloud your perception of how they have behaved. They have failed, the very reason the Conclave has been necessary,” Novan said.
Alriyn had a strange sense that this was an old argument between the two, but why? Why would they argue over the role and purpose of the Magi?
“Help me understand then. If the Magi are at fault for something, help me understand what that is so that I can be a part of the correction.”
Novan grunted, reminding Alriyn of Endric's reaction. “You have never wanted to be a part of any correction before.”
“I don't think the Magi have ever known we needed to be a part of a correction before.”
Novan opened his mouth to say something more, but Endric raised his hand, silencing both, and stared at Alriyn, fixing him with a gaze that made Alriyn wonder how his Denraen soldiers could withstand the intensity or the force of the man's will, and almost took a step back.
“When we say the gods are real, we are speaking of beings referred to as the gods,” Endric began. “The Conclave has long known that the gods are real, at least that these beings are real. It's the Magi who have believed they were otherwise. We have wanted the Magi to believe otherwise.”
“Why?” Alriyn asked.
Endric continued holding him with his intense gaze. “Because the Magi served as we needed. The Conclave has a need for the Magi to respond in a certain way. If you had not, then peace would have failed.”
“You're telling me the gods are real. Then you're telling me that they are something different than what I know as the gods, then you tell me that they require the peace that we have long attempted to maintain because of the mahne. And yet you still insult the beliefs that my people have?”
Novan tapped his staff on the ground. As he did, light flashed slightly. “The beings you know as the gods are historically known as the damahne. They are powerful. But their power has waned.”
“What does it matter what we call them? They’re gods whether you call them damahne”—he recognized the word from the ancient language, and knew there were multiple ways of translating it, and wondered if there was an intentional overlap with the phrase mahne—“or whether you call them by some other title. All that matters is that we serve them as they demand.”
“That is not all that matters,” Endric said. “What matters is that their strength has faded. The damahne once were more numerous. They looked over the land, maintaining the peace, and in that way, perhaps they were every bit the gods that we would like to believe them to be. But…”
Alriyn looked from Endric to Novan, waiting for one of the men to expound. “But what?”
Novan tapped his staff once more. The lines of teralin flowed along it, surging with twisting light. As it did, Alriyn noted strands of energy coming off it, much like the energy he'd begun seeing around everything. It was different than the manehlin, but he still didn't quite know what it meant. “The damahne have faded from the world. Only one remains.”
Only one? Was that the goddess he had seen in his vision?
“The gods have ascended to the heavens. They watch over us—”
Novan chuckled softly. “Stop spouting the beliefs of your people and use your mind, Alriyn. You are an intelligent scholar. You must be for Endric to trust you the way he does. Stop accepting the dogma your people have taught over the years and start engaging your mind to observe what you see around you.”
Alriyn laughed. “If you think to turn me into a historian, Novan, you’re mistaken. The Magi don't need to be historians to be scholars.”
Novan tipped the end of his staff toward Alriyn. “Good. Because that's the mind we need right now. We need you active, we need you engaged. If you aren’t, we will have a harder time expunging the Deshmahne from the city.”
Alriyn crossed his arms over his chest, his mind racing. The throbbing pain that he been feeling since attacking Jostephon had begun to fade. Now it was a sort of steady, dull ache. It was still there, distantly, and he at least felt that eventually it would disappear altogether. For now, the worst pain was the memory of what he had done.
He didn't think he’d damaged his mind, yet there was no doubting that something had changed within him. He saw energy that was not the manehlin, and he believed it to be real, but what if it was not? What if it was imagined by his injured mind? That would make more sense than for Endric and Novan to have abilities they should not.
Something they said troubled him, and it took a moment for him to recognize why. “Why does it matter then if the Deshmahne take hold in Vasha if the gods are not real?”
Novan smiled. “Now you're beginning to think. Now you're beginning to question.”
“That seems to be more of an insult than a compliment.”
Novan offered a slight shrug. “Take it as you will, Alriyn. Know that there is a reason the Deshmahne came here to Vasha. There is a reason they sought something in these tunnels. Think. You've seen what they want.”
“I haven't seen them. I've seen Jostephon. I've heard from Roelle what the Deshmahne do. All I've heard are reports.”
“And that should be enough. Those reports are accurate. The Deshmahne are what you've heard in your reports. They seek power and strength, using that to rule.”
“But if the gods are not real, and the mahne doesn't matter—”
“We're not saying the mahne doesn't matter. Far from that. What we’re s
aying is that there's a different interpretation than what you were taught to believe. That interpretation is what matters.”
Alriyn looked around the tunnels. “What would they have found here that would help them gain power?”
“They have entered the city using force, but they should not have been able to enter these tunnels. We have kept them protected since Tresten sealed them,” Endric said.
“The Conclave has made certain they were protected. And we have failed,” Novan added.
“Historian, tell me what was here.”
Endric answered. “We've already said. There were powerful artifacts here. Some of which, I suspect, give him the power he seeks.”
“Who?”
“The High Priest. A man the Conclave knows as Raime. A man who has lived in this world for countless years but has never gained that which he seeks.”
Goosebumps formed on Alriyn’s arms. He feared what they would answer, but he had to ask. “And what does he seek, if not the mahne?”
“The power of the damahne,” Novan said. “He would steal the power of the gods.”
Chapter Seventeen
Roelle sat across the fire from Fenick, meeting his piercing blue-eyed stare. It almost made her question what she believed about the Deshmahne. There was violence in him, and she knew that he thought to honor the gods by serving the Deshmahne, but she had seen him to be different from the Deshmahne she’d face before.
She needed to know why that was.
He’d asked about her. After what they had faced, his question required an honest answer. The Deshmahne assistance with stopping three broods made it such that she owed him that much. Would being honest about who she was—and what she intended—put the Magi she wanted to protect in danger?
“Tell me how you fight as well as you do? You're not of the order, but I see the way that you move, and you fight like no soldier I’ve seen before.”
Tower of the Gods (The Lost Prophecy Book 3) Page 13